“Why didn’t you just bring Kizuna with you?” I asked. If they were able to free her, they should have brought her along. But instead, Glass and Sadeena had come back to me alone. It did sound like something had happened. I just hadn’t confirmed it.

“Look over there.” Glass pointed. I looked . . . and there was something that looked like Kizuna.

Not someone. Something.

A statue of Kizuna, standing like some temple effigy, with a fishing rod out in front of her. Was this really Kizuna? Not just some carving? The fishing rod looked accurate, but I didn’t really like the design overall.

But think. This world had status and status effects, just like a video game. I combined my video game experience with the fact that Glass said this was Kizuna.

“Has she been petrified?” I asked.

“That’s right . . .” Glass confirmed. Wow, so there was a petrification status effect! Now that it came up, I remembered seeing resistance to it among the effects when a shield was unlocked. I’d never been attacked by it myself, but the proof of it was right in front of me.

“She isn’t dead, right? She can be turned back, right?” I asked.

“It should be possible. It will take a little time, but she can be restored,” Glass said.

“Fair enough. So we’ve recovered Kizuna, at least. I guess this counts,” I replied. She was in one piece—even if that was one big piece of stone—so we should just be happy at having been reunited with her.

“I can’t use much magic at the moment, so I can’t provide much healing magic. We’ll just have to hope we can resolve the petrification as quickly as possible,” I concluded. After defeating Miyaji and the others and driving the moron woman away, I’d thought I would be able to use the shield and my magic again, but they still weren’t working. Whatever trap they had set, it seemed to still be covering the whole world and was continuing to seal away our weapons and magic.

“Let’s carry her out then,” I said.

“Good idea. Thank you for your help,” Glass replied. We proceeded to carry out the petrified Kizuna. She was pretty heavy . . . but I had a high enough level to manage it.

“Let me help too.” Ethnobalt also lent a hand carrying the statue. There wasn’t much room for anyone else to help.

In any case, we’d successfully taken Kizuna back.

After that, thanks to having captured the dragon hourglass pretty easily, we used Return Dragon Vein and returned to L’Arc’s country.

“Looks like we got you back on your feet pretty quickly,” I said.

“You sure did. You’ve been a big help, kiddo,” L’Arc replied. We were talking in one of the facilities in his nation, watching Kizuna’s statue as she was gradually healed.